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The Blog for Friday, October 10, 2014

Debates could alter Florida governor's race

"The first of three critical hours that could alter the outcome of the Florida governor's race is [tonight], when Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democratic challenger Charlie Crist face off. . . . Adding even more potential for drama: the stakes are heightened because the candidates are in a too-close-to-call contest.

The Miami Herald editors: "Florida is giving us the spectacle of its 44th governor, Charlie Crist, trying to get his job back from the 45th, Rick Scott. Voters don’t seem to care much for either." "Poor choices in Fla. governor’s race."

John Romano picks apart Bondi's "vigorous and vacuous arguments against gay marriage. Bondi has repeatedly stated that hers is not a personal crusade but rather her responsibility as the state's top law enforcement official. This argument would carry much greater weight if the Attorney General did not pick and choose which laws and constitutional amendments to aggressively enforce."

Florida's voters also recently passed a constitutional amendment requiring lawmakers to avoid partisan politics when redrawing districts. A recent court case indicated lawmakers ignored that law and mysteriously deleted pertinent documents. There were also indications party operatives falsely submitted a map under a college student's name to avoid detection.

The Attorney General has not seemed overly concerned with those abuses.

She has also largely ignored constitutional issues involving the Sunshine Law, school vouchers once ruled illegal by the state Supreme Court and corporate pollution laws.

On the other hand, she has aggressively defended such partisan issues as warrantless searches, prison privatization and a flawed voter purge.

The Attorney General's explanations seem spurious and self-serving, and are completely incompatible with her actions in other matters. She should drop all appeals immediately. Further delay might indicate a preference to wait until after the upcoming election, which would amount to a despicable abuse of power.

"Democrat Charlie Crist holds a sizable 53-29 percent lead over Gov. Rick Scott among Hispanic voters, according to a new poll that indicates this fastest growing segment of the electorate doesn't like Republican positions on immigration, Medicaid and the minimum wage."

The poll, released as the two major candidates square off Friday in a debate hosted by Spanish-language network Telemundo, is the latest spot of good survey news for Crist.

The Democrat appears to be gaining ground on Scott and edges the Republican in four statewide likely voter surveys released this week. Crist's lead in those general polls, though, is inside the polls' margins of error, meaning the race is pretty much a tie.

The horse-race question aside, the Latino Decisions/La Raza survey bucks some conventional wisdom when it comes to the importance of immigration to Hispanic voters.

Part of the reason immigration isn't such a high concern for Florida Hispanics is that the two largest groups, Cubans and Puerto Ricans, aren't as affected by the issue. Cubans get a special pathway to citizenship if they land on U.S. soil and Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.